Distinctive Projectile Point Technology Sheds Light on Peopling of the Americas

EurekAlert! ^ | July 11, 2018 | Thomas J. Williams, Texas State U

[AndyJackson]

What a thoroughly fascinating article on several subjects that I knew nothing about, e.g.:

1. What Clovis points are - heard the term, just never knew what was distinctive.
2. Optical Stimulated Luminescence Dating - to this PhD physicist I am amazed that it actually works
3. The Balcones Fault and Escarpment - forming the boundary between the coastal plains and the Texas Hill Country above Austin and San Antonio, places I know well, but ...
4. The Gault Archaelogical Site

SC, thanks for coming back and keeping this going

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks AJ for the kind remarks. Optical Stimulated Luminescence Dating is part of a broader family of surface dating, also includes cosmic ray exposure dating (I’d like to see that done, if appropriate, to the Ramesseum and the Great Sphinx), thermoluminescence (often used on ceramics, such as pottery), and infrared stimulated luminescence.

What is OSL dating?
https://www.baylor.edu/geology/index.php?id=868084

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luminescence_dating

Cosmic-ray Exposure Ages of Meteorites
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2003TrGeo...1..347H

Cosmogenic nuclide dating
http://www.antarcticglaciers.org/glacial-geology/dating-glacial-sediments-2/cosmogenic_nuclide_datin/

[Dusty Road]

No guarantee I can make three in a row without breaking one but I'm very capable of duplicating a Clovis or a Folsom.

[TXnMA]

Nice work! (Edwards?)

Looks like you have midline ridge development down well enough to be pretty sure of fluting success.

Now -- look at how far the pre-Clovis knappers at Gault were below yourt skill level...

You and I probably have better looking debitage piles than that... '-)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

At 80, my hand-eye coordination is definitely "over the hill", now. But, every time I attempt a Clovis, I can still hear "Solly" (J.B. Sollberger) sitting beside me at Lake Belton -- saying (after hearing an end-shock "SNAP!") -- "See! I told you to always thin the ends first!" '-)

IMHO, teaching flintknapping to the next generation had a lot to do with human language development...

TXnMA
 

[ApplegateRanch]

Thanks for the photo link.

Take a close look at ‘T’. Even enlarged, it still looks like a human face etched on it.

[Theophilus]

They were always suing one another for patent violations. Twas the reason they never got past the stone age. Apple and Android arrows head peoples were among the worst. Microsoftis people made their victims accept a EULA before they could stare up at the great blue screen of death!

[SunkenCiv]

It resembles a smiley face — apropos, since the US invented the www.

[octex]

Thank you for the photos, TXnMA!

[Dusty Road]

If you knew Solly then there’s a good chance we have met in the past, I used to hit the Texas Knap-in’s on a regular basis. We’ve lost allot of the old knappers but I’m amazed at the skills of some of the young guns.

[wildbill]

We had a post recently about a pre Clovis site on an island up near Vancouver Canada that was about the same age I believe.
the theory is that they came by boat/rafts along the glacoer edges on the sea shores